Book Review of Tales of Lust, Hate and Despair
Tales of Lust, Hate and Despair
By Ian Truman
Blurb:
Samuel Lee has known three days of freedom in the last
eighteen years. Three days to come out of prison, see his daughter, settle a
score and go back in again, for good this time.
Told in the tradition of the best literary noir, Tales
of Lust, Hate, and Despair is a modern, lowdown and gritty take on the genre.
Inspired by the cinema of Akira Kurosawa and Samuel Fuller as well as the music
of Tom Waits, Sage Francis, Neurosis and Marilyn Manson, it is a novel that is
sure to please anyone who has ever found themselves trapped and cast aside from
the world.
- Tales of Lust, Hate and Despair will be free for
five days during the launch week through Kindle.
- Ian Truman will be at the Ottawa Small Press Book
Fair on June 30th.
- Blog Blitz on June 29th.
- Blog tour starting on June 29th.
Goodreads
http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/15726756-tales-of-lust-hate-and-despair
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About Ian Truman (Bio)
I am from a working class
family and I am proud of my origins. For the last seven years, I have been
employed as an assembly line worker, a forklift driver, a park ranger, a
warehouse clerk, a janitor, an industrial laundry operator, a warehouse clerk
some more and still am to this day. I have never stopped working full time and
I saw firsthand how the theories of political science could hardly apply to the
realities of the working masses. I have worked in the downtown area, in Laval,
Rosemont, Montreal-East (Between the Petro-Canada oil storage facility and the
Falconbridge foundry) and the south-west prior to gentrification. I have seen
Montreal change and the people suffer from these changes.
I write not because I believe
that some great social revolution is going to come out of any novel I can
write. I have no illusions about the revolutionary potential of fiction
writing. I truly believe that it is only by changing economic structures that a
society can change fundamentally. This is basic Marxism. So why write at all?
It is a good question. I mostly write to purge the hatred inside me, to purge
the hours of factory work, poverty and strife of all sorts. I am majoring in
Creative Writing, in a language that is not my native tongue because I felt it
was a challenge. I am also graduating with a minor in political science,
through which I discovered many philosophers that have influenced me deeply. I
have studied the essays of Karl Marx, Immanuel Wallerstein, Ernesto Guevara,
Max Stirner, Mikhail Bakunin, but also capitalist philosophers such as Thomas
Hobbes or John Locke. I’ve looked into dichotomies such as Anarchism vs.
Fascism, Communism vs. Capitalism. Nationalist vs. Internationalist etc… I
believe that my existence is guided by philosophies such as Buddhism, Hinduism
but also Nihilism.
As Nietzsche explained, human
beings are guided both by rationality and irrationality. We are capable of
reason and structure but at the same time we need flesh and passion, if not
sin. I write political essays when I need to exercise my rational side. I write
it in order to better my knowledge of social structures. I write it to better
society. Rarely have I included philosophers or philosophy in my fictional
works. I believe they are underlining all the stories I write. But I don’t
write Fiction in order to prove a point. I write fiction to fill my need for
creativity and passion. Mostly, I write because I need to. It fills my
passionate, irrational side. When I write, I look for truth, however ugly or
beautiful it may be. I look for sincere elements, uncensored and raw; I look
for the visceral. My works combine beauty and despair, struggles and hopes. I
truly enjoy dichotomies that bring people out of their comfort zones. I avoid
moralist statements and allow the reader to bring their own conclusion about
the work, about the characters, and (hopefully) about their lives.
Aesthetically, my style
combines vernacular language to noir elements. I also enjoy dirty realism and
modernist novels. I try to avoid anything too conceptual or things such as
“Streams of consciousness. I allow myself to be influences by all sorts of
creative endeavors. In the visual arts, I’ve enjoyed graffiti art for quite
some time. I see political posturing as a creative act (Aka propaganda). I
enjoy visual artists such as Matthew Barney and Shepard Fairey. In film, my
most notable influences are Akira Kurosawa’s “Drunken Angel”, Imamura’s “The
Pornographers”, Fukasaku’s “Yakusa Papers” or American (and Canadian)
filmmakers such as Cronnenberg, Lynch or Smith. I also write under musical
influences ranging from Grunge (Nirvana, Violent Femmes), to punk (Social
Distortion, Bouncing Souls), hardcore (Warzone, Blacklisted, Blood for Blood),
hip-hop (Dead Prez, Wu-Tang-Clan), folk (Chuck Ragan, Tim Barry), blues (Billie
Holiday, Chester Burnett) and country (Johnny Cash, David Allan Coe). As far as
authors go, I believe I am influenced by a large variety of authors. William
Faulkner is the first one that comes to mind. But also Ernest Hemingway,
Charles Bukowski, Ray Bradbury, George Orwell, Truman Capote, Henry Rollins,
the RZA, Samuel Beckett, David Fennario, William S. Burroughs etc…
All of these
cultural and philosophical references are found in some way or another in my
creative endeavors. In the end, I may be the one typing the words on the page,
but they are all in the back of my mind, spilling out their guts to the world
through my words.
Excerpt:
Prologue
Donnaconna Institution
Maximum Security
145 miles north-east of Montreal
267 inmates
27% serving life sentences
2012
Hey
kid.
I know
you requested to be here in person but your mother had enough sense not to
allow it. You’re not eighteen yet, so her decision is final and I think she
made the right call. Donnacona Federal prison ain’t no place for a girl like
you.
Now, I
know I’m not much of a father, probably because I never had the chance to be
one but I am sorry I never got to be there for you. Your grandfather came to
visit a few weeks ago. I’m glad to see that there’s at least one person from my
side of the family who’s looking out for you. He told me you applied to circus
school in Montreal. I never thought you could go to school for that, but he
says your heart is set on it. So my heart is now set on it too. I just hope I
get to see one of your shows one day. If you’ll have me, of course.
I guess
what I want to say is, I ain’t got much, but I do have a little money set
aside. Only seven thousand or so, but it’s something. It’s all legit money, so
don’t worry about how I raised it. I don’t do drugs and I’ve quit drinking
years ago. They don’t pay much here in prison, but I’m working the laundry
service for 5.50 a day. I’ve been behaving well, and I got lucky enough to get
on a Corcan program twice. It pays a little more and it gives me credits and
experience to work when I get out. Now, the money is yours whether you want it
or not. I don’t have much use for it in here.
Your
mother said you wanted to know what happened that day, said you were pretty
insistent about it. I don’t know if it is out of anger, which I wouldn’t hold
against you, or if it is out of compassion, but if you think you are old enough
to hear these things, I’m ready to tell you.
Book Review:
Samuel Lee writes a letter to his
daughter from prison to tell her why he is in prison and why he killed a
man. The writing is gritty, raw,
emotional, and stark. It reminds me
somewhat of a courser “Cannery Row” with its unbridled and stripped view of the
underbelly of the large city in Canada, but it could really be any city that
has a definitive poor or slum area. This
differentiation between the classes is still prominent in large cities, despite
our desire to eradicate this blight.
While it was at times difficult to follow
the dialogue due to the dialect the story uses, the writing is emotionally
powerful and exposes the soul of a man condemned to life in prison. It was difficult to read at times due to the
nature of the topic, but powerful in the way that Steinbech’s novel explored
the underbelly of society in his reaction to war.
I give this novel 4 out of 5 clouds
for the writing and emotional tone, although I would not lightly recommend this
novel to anyone because of the nature of the topic and the language used.
This
product or book may have been distributed for review; this in no way affects my
opinions or reviews.
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